For
the past 29 days I have been doing a self-imposed process. I’ve been taking and
posting a photograph a day.
If
someone had asked me what I did during the past month, I would hem and haw,
either not wanting to explain, not remembering, or making small my experience.
Sometimes it does appear we do not accomplish much, we go through our daily
process and nightly sleep, only to get up and do it all over again.
Taking
those pictures made me notice what was around me and to find something
noteworthy in it. It made me keep my word. It was a journal in pictures.
There
is nothing terribly fancy in my pictures. It is life as I see it, beautiful
flowers wet with rain, a tiny frog, baby chicks, carousals. Go for a walk and
what do you find? A horse coming to the fence to greet you, a tree
turning color behind your house*, mushrooms in the yard.
Me
and my phone walking around. One more photo to go.
All
are posted on www.travelwithjoyce.com
And now about our purpose:
Ever
since I heard the writer/ researcher Michael Tellinger say, “Our purpose is to
raise the consciousness of the people,” I said, “Yes. That’s it.”
This
is the top purpose, you might have sub-purposes, like pursuing your dream of
becoming an artist, or building a hospital in Africa, but first and foremost,
we ought to uplift the consciousness of the people that populate this planet.
We
do not need to fix people; we need to assist them in fixing themselves. One by
one if people popped out of their limitations, the world would be transformed
without our lifting a finger. And we could say that rarely do we find a broken
person, only people in want of something.
Evidence
of my claim is that hordes of people are seeking out healing experiences,
joining consciousness-raising groups, and
studying Quantum physics to understand where they fit into the cosmos. People
throng to Tony Robbins events with the belief that their lives will improve
because of it. Millions follow the TED talks with presenters encouraging us to
live our dream, follow our bliss, and
live the life for which we were born.
All
this tells me people are hungry to know and to understand where they fit into
the cosmos. People throng together to bring fresh water to Africa, to begin a
peace movement, to stand up for green movements, promote solar energy, animal
rights, clean ocean, and healthy forests.
See,
people do care.
The
negative side is upping the ante as well. Perhaps we have negativity running
scared. Movies feature violence unprecedented, with writers coming
up with atrocities that rival the inquisition. Television, once fun, and a
cultural unifier, has become to use Seth Godin’s phrase “An instrument of
dissatisfaction.” Either it presents something we can’t obtain, or it tells us
that something is the matter with us for which a product can fix.
Don’t
listen. Don’t watch.
We
have become polarized over politics to the extent that we can hardly have a
civil conversation. The Democrats think the Republicans
are stupid. The Republicans think the Democrats are losers. You can shake your
head and say, that’s about right, yet, remember the neighbor who took you to
the hospital when your little boy broke his arm? She was of the opposite party
from you, yet, she was your friend. It is hard to hate someone close up.
“Dehumanizing,”
according to sociologist Brene’ Brown , “always starts with language, often
followed by images.” We call people aliens, cockroaches, or savages, to justify
exterminating them, ostracizing them, delegating
them to subhuman status, or just plain not liking them. When I was a
teenager I read that in 20 years it would be as
abhorrent to us to kill a person as it was then to eat one. Whew, I thought, however, I must wait a while longer.
We
have been enslaved for millennia, and largely still are. That’s where we need
to assert our independence. And people are—when employment became ridiculous to
obtain even with advanced degrees, people turned to entrepreneurship.
We are a
creative bunch.
The
best account I have read of unleashing your creative self, came from #Don Hahn,
the producer of The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast (animated version). He
was the son of a pastor, and his Sunday morning memories were of the fragrance
of coffee and doughnuts wafting up from the basement. One morning his teacher
read a Bible verse that changed his life. She read that God created humans in
his own image. Wow, thought Hahn, I am related to God. A creative
relationship, like the potter to his clay, the painter to his canvas, the baker
to his bread. And, God is crazy about creativity—oh he must have had a few
false starts, like dinosaurs, and giants, but look at his successes.
Then, thought the young Hahn, if I am related to God, I must be creative
too. (Hahn was an animator for Disney.)
“Rather
than searching for life’s meaning, know that you have the power to create it.”
–#Marie Forleo